Televised mass celebrates 50 years on the airwaves

Fr. Paul Abbass, right, was producer of the Mass For Shut-ins program in this March 1999 photo. Also shown is a former producer of the program, Fr. Bedford Doucette.Submitted by Doug Mombourquette

A televised broadcast that regularly brings mass into homes across the Maritimes will celebrate its golden anniversary next month.

Mass For Shut-ins started as a six-week pilot project put forward by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Antigonish on the former CJCB-Sydney television station.

The first live broadcast aired on March 3, 1963, and was produced by Fr. Frank Abbass with Fr. Angus MacLeod as the celebrant.

“What I do remember about it was we didn’t finish in time,” said Abbass. “I didn’t know enough about that, how to time it you see. And I took out a part that I should never have taken out, the main part, the part where people receive communion.”

Abbass says when he began the Mass For Shut-ins journey, he made a to-do list. The first item on that list was to convince CJCB that it should air a live mass program. However, there was no convincing needed, as the producer at the time had long dreamed of broadcasting mass across the Maritimes.

“I was doing media work for the diocese and I just wanted to expand it and the particular group for whom we could expand it was people who had no opportunity to get to mass, because of whatever reason, they were shut-in,” said the 82-year-old Abbass. “So I said I’ll give it a try.

“It was an arrangement in which we paid; I insisted that we pay because I didn’t want it to just be considered a public service program.”

Since the first airing of Mass For Shut-ins, the television program has come to be widely appreciated by the thousands of Atlantic Canadians who find themselves housebound, either in their own homes, or living in residential care centres, seniors complexes or special care homes.

During broadcast season, Mass For Shut-ins features congregations, choirs and priests who travel from across the diocese for the broadcast.

“The response was very large immediately,” said Abbass. “A lot of letters came in and the letters all said ‘We hope that this will continue’ and the quality of the letters was overwhelming.”

Abbass said he remembers two letters in particular. One came from a Dominion mother who said she had two adult children who were disabled and who had never witnessed mass. Another letter came from a lighthouse keeper off Cape Breton who wrote that it was the first time he was able to participate in the mass through television.

“I think the people thought that if they wrote enough letters that would convince the station that we should be on, but the station didn’t need convincing.”

Mass for Shut-ins now broadcasts each Sunday at 11:30 a.m. AST, on CTV from the second Sunday of October until the second Sunday of May.

To celebrate the upcoming anniversary of the program there will be a supper on Saturday, March 2, for invited guests and volunteers at St. Theresa’s hall on St. Peters Road in Sydney.

An open house will also be held on Sunday, March 3 from 1-4 p.m. at St. Theresa’s hall. All are welcome to attend.

Prior to the open house, the 50th anniversary mass will be broadcast live at 11:30 a.m. from the CTV studio in Sydney.

The mass will be presided over by Bishop Brian Dunn, Fr. Frank Abbass and Fr. Angus MacLeod.

“It was the first for Atlantic Canada, it was maybe the second one, to televise a mass in Canada but as a program they continued and it’s the longest running religious service in Canada,” said Abbass.

He also said Mass for Shut-ins was a pioneer program in the sense that for the first time a program was being broadcast in Sydney to the mainland and to other provinces such as Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.

Abbass, like many others, believes the success of the program is largely attributed to its volunteers, many of whom have been regular mainstays at the studio for decades.

“There’s a whole group of volunteers, some of them have been there almost since the beginning,” said Peter Burke, who started volunteering in the 1980s. “When I first started there were two crews. A Saturday crew put the set up and another crew worked on mass Sunday morning and then put it away.”

In addition to no longer having to erect a set each week, one of the changes has been the occasional pre-tapings of the broadcast due to a shortage of priests available to celebrate the mass on Sunday mornings.

There also is no longer a priest serving as producer of the program.

“We have 100 priests available and about 50 or a little less than 50 now are full-time in parishes and most of our priests are retired,” said Bishop Brian Dunn. “Most are over 65 and so there’s a large number that are retired and not in active service.”

Dunn said he’s not surprised by the endurance of the program and attributes much of that to the commitment of its volunteers.

“I think the program has been a wonderful success for the diocese and especially for people who are watching it,” said Dunn. “It’s been a real source of consolation for them and a way for them to be connected somehow or other with the church, especially when they’re shut in. It’s a real sense of trying to provide some good support for them.”

Dunn said while it may be more difficult in this age to fit a regular mass into busy schedules, the need to do so has become more pronounced.

“It may take a little bit more commitment but I think it’s probably more necessary than ever to have a kind of a perspective of faith in terms of the difficult issues that people have to deal with,” he said. “So to have some faith provides a little bit of support in the midst of the trials of every day life.”

There is, however, one factor of the mass which remains consistent. Charitable donations that pour in from across the country are what continue to fund the program at no cost to the diocese.

Volunteer Doug Mombourquette said donations not only pour in from individuals but also from several service clubs in the area that often appear on the show, including the Sydney Council 1060 Knight of Columbus which has been involved with the mass since the very beginning.

“It’s phenomenal how many groups come on to this mass,” said Mombourquette. “That’s what has kept it going for 50 years.”

epottie@cbpost.com

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